As with all other members of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint has its own set of shortcut keys to help you navigate around it, and control slideshows.

The shortcuts here are a little different to those for other programs, as some only work in the slideshow creation mode, some only work in slideshow view mode, and some work with both. It’s fairly obvious which are which, but some distinction has been made where necessary.

As with other shortcuts lists, they have been grouped by how they are accessed, rather than by function. Where a special key such as the ‘ctrl’ key is used, it is displayed as [ctrl].

General Keys (Normally used during slideshows)

B – Display a black screen or return to the slideshow from a black screen.
E – Hide on screen annotations.
H – Skip to the next hidden slide.
M – Use mouse click to advance during rehearsal.
O – Use original timings during rehearsal.
T – Change timings during rehearsal.
N – Display the next slide.
P – Display the previous slide.
S – Stop or replay an automatic slide show
W – Display a white screen or return to the slideshow from a white screen.
[Esc] – End a slideshow.
[Tab] – Goto next hyperlink on the current slide.